Homeless Youth Alliance

This placee is great. Real staff me, bers trying to help. No judgement everyone has encouragement. The place is cool drop in for you in a homeless position. Come in to watch a movie, chill out eat free food. Or stay oit of the rain hell, stop by for health group and learn proper skills to build self comfodence. Safe travels urban pioneers :)

It feels weird to be reviewing a non-​profit organization on Unilocal,because by definition, HYA isn’t a business. However, as a non-​profit — especially one that commits the apparently unpardonable sin of trying to help homeless, often drug-​addicted kids — I figure HYA needs all the help it can get.
I’m a successful, tax-​paying graphic designer. I’m also a recovering drug addict, and I’m married to a man who wouldn’t be alive if not for HYA and Mary Howe, its indomitable, tiny, ferocious, brilliant director.
Maybe you’ve read the recent series by C.W. Nevius, in the San Francisco Chronicle, which singled out HYA and Mary Howe (who also runs the SF Needle Exchange). Nevius, apparently, would like nothing more than for the desperate, drug-​addicted kids who hang out on the streets of San Francisco to just please go away. Reading his ill-​informed, class-​obsessed tirades, I was saddened; not just that he chose to use his media power to disparage children and those who try to help them, but by how much San Francisco has changed — not for the better — that a man who writes so glowingly about golf tournaments and opera soirees and all the sad fripperies of the rich, writes with such desperately ignorant inhumanity about a group of young people who are in such great need of help and understanding.
My husband is a great example of one of «Mary’s kids» who wouldn’t be alive today without the HYA, Needle Exchange, and Mary’s implacable drive to help. Kicked out by his abusive mother at 12, he was given five dollars, a bucknife, and a sleeping bag. Alone, sad, his jaw a mass of scar tissue from the three times his father held him up against a wall by his throat — starting at age seven — and punched him so hard that his jaw shattered, my husband wandered the streets. First in Texas, and later in Florida and finally ending up in San Francisco, his life was about what you’d imagine. He did what he had to to survive, and when someone offered him heroin, he did that to blot out the pain of doing what he had to to survive.
Eventually, at 23, horribly addicted and not wanting to live anymore, he came to San Francisco, planning to try to get of heroin one more time, or, if that failed, jump off the Golden Gate Bridge.
Through a series of events too weird and Byzantine to go into here, he ended up at the Homeless Youth Alliance, and there he met Mary, who patiently and without judgment, gave him the support and advice he needed to get clean and sober. Sure, it took a while, and of course, there were relapses and crises along the way, but today, he’s a healthy, happy guy with a good life, who does his best to pay it back by helping out other people. He still goes to visit Mary from time to time. I’ve come with him and met her many times.
The mission of the HYA is «to meet homeless youth where they’re at, and to help them build healthier lives. We believe reducing harm is possible through the provision of accessible, non-​judgmental drop-​in and outreach sessions, one-​on-​one counseling, creative and educational workshops, medical and mental care, needle exchange, and accurate, up to date referrals and information. We strive to empower homeless youth to protect themselves, educate each other, and reduce harm within the community — and transition off the streets.»
Reading that, it’s hard to believe that anyone could oppose the HYA’s activities, but sadly, there are a lot of people out there whose discomfort at the fact of homeless children on the streets of their city takes the form of intolerance. Rather than help by donating to the HYA and Needle Exchange, it seems many people — no doubt feeling justified after a nice morning reading CW Nevius’ outraged rants — wish that these homeless and addicted, frequently abused children would just go away, or, if they won’t do that, that they’d have the decency and thoughtfulness to be rich and born into non-​abusive homes.
Go into the HYA sometime, and talk to Mary; you’ll see a wall full of pictures of kids. One of those walls is pictures of children who died, because help didn’t come soon enough, or because they were just too damaged. On the other hand, I know many of Mary’s former clients, like my husband, who found their way back to life and health through the HYA and Needle Exchange, and who are now the kind of people at whom I doubt even CW Nevius would turn up his nose.
Having such an unpopular job to do, HYA tends to lose funding every time budgets get re-​allocated, so if you have a spare ten or fifty or $ 100, please consider sending them a donation. It’s tax-​deductible, and you can send checks payable to ‘Tenderloin Health/​Homeless Youth Alliance’ at PO Box 170 427, San Francisco, CA 94 117. They also take donations of hygiene supplies (unopened bottles/​containers of shampoo, soap, toothpaste, toothbrushes, razors, shaving cream, and new socks), which can be dropped off at 1696 Haight Street during their scheduled open hours (see the web site).